In September, we released our latest Patterns of Play report - a look at how high-performing teams really operate in environments defined by speed, pressure, and constant change.
One theme came through clearly: high performance isn’t built in the big moments - it’s built long before them.
To explore this further, we hosted a breakfast event with James Kerr, author of Legacy and one of the world’s leading thinkers on high-performance culture. His session brought the report to life - showing how identity, belonging, and behavioural clarity become the foundation that performance rests on.
This event set the platform for our later webinar with Dr Ian Mitchell, Dr Mike Rotheram, and Dr Philippa McGregor, where we explored the same theme from inside elite football: how teams perform not after change, but through it.
This blog covers the first half of that story - the deep cultural foundations behind high performance - before Part 2 takes us into the applied world of trust, adaptability and performing under real pressure.
Here’s what the breakfast event revealed.
1. Culture Lives in What You Do, Not What You Print.
The strongest cultures don’t rely on speeches, posters, or long value statements. They rely on signals.
- The All Blacks’ haka doesn’t describe identity — it embodies it.
- England Cricket’s cap presentations don’t tell stories — they connect people to them.
Identity is emotional, not administrative. People commit to what they can feel. This is why culture has to start early — long before performance frameworks, dashboards, or OKRs. Identity is the soil everything else grows from.
2. Build Connection Early. Build Performance Faster.
High-performing teams don’t wait for belonging to emerge. They design it. From shared language to symbolic rituals, they build connection early so people can contribute early. Belonging isn’t a soft concept.
It’s a performance multiplier:
- More honest conversations
- Faster alignment
- Deeper motivation
- Clearer accountability
Part 2 of this series shows how belonging fuels trust — but this breakfast session explored where belonging actually starts.
3. Challenge Isn't Conflict - It's Contribution
In elite environments, silence is far more dangerous than dissent. Teams that perform at the top don’t avoid challenge.
They expect it. Invite it. Protect it.
Challenge becomes:
- A safeguard against poor decisions
- A check against blind spots
- A way to refine thinking under pressure
But challenge only works when leaders model the behaviour themselves — signalling that honesty isn’t a risk, it’s part of the job.
4. Drift Starts Quiet & Spreads Fast
Drift rarely announces itself. It whispers.
- A minute late.
- A softened standard.
- A missed conversation.
- A behaviour left unchallenged.
By the time drift becomes visible, it’s already cultural. Elite teams:
- Spot behavioural cues early
- Review behaviours, not just tasks
- Empower peer leadership groups to self-correct
- Treat drift as data, not drama
This breakfast event brought this to life more than anything else: high performance isn’t built by what teams do under pressure — it’s built by what they tolerate when pressure is low.
5. Leadership Isn’t a Role. It’s a Responsibility Shared.
Culture fails when it depends on senior leaders alone. Culture works when peers reinforce it. Peer leadership groups:
- Guard standards
- Reinforce belonging
- Protect identity
- Catch drift before it spreads
- Challenge with intent, not ego
This isn’t management. It’s ownership. Teams become durable when everyone becomes responsible for who the team is becoming. caption to suupoort this blog post
Patterns of Play in The Premier League
This breakfast session laid the foundation: identity, belonging, behavioural standards, and self-correcting teams.
Part 2 — our webinar with Dr Ian Mitchell, Dr Mike Rotheram, and Dr Philippa McGregor — builds directly on this, showing how teams turn those foundations into performance through pressure and constant change.